“You’re talking to me?” I asked.
“Yes. I am.”
“I don’t know you.”
“I work for Prometheus.”
“I’m afraid that means nothing to me.”
“The flight to Istanbul is approximately an hour and forty minutes. The magazines run dry after barely ten minutes of entertainment.”
Silence.
I gave up pretending to read, sat back in my chair.
Counted backwards from ten.
“Gauguin, right?”
“That’s right.”
“French post-impressionist artist, died 1903, days before he was due to start serving a prison sentence for libelling the governor of the Marquesas Islands. Have you seen Tahitian Women on a Beach? There are two women by the sea, a pattern in the sand, as if they’ve been doodling, a pipe, some tobacco, not used. They have flowers in their hair.”
“You know more about it than I do.”
“Then why call yourself Gauguin?”
He shrugged. “It’s a name. I can use something else, if you want.”
“Gauguin is fine.”
“And you are…?”
“You can call me Why.”
A push, a rise of engine, the wheels come up, heads go back; I glance out of the window to watch the dust outside give way to the sea, and there’s the town, barely bigger than the airport that serves it, five streets of luxury, a nowhere place in the desert. He waited until the sound of the engine had slowed, the flight levelled off, before folding his magazine perfectly, precisely, into the pouch in front of him.
“There are some questions we’ll need to ask,” he said.
“What questions?”
“About the robbery. How you accessed the 106 Club in Dubai; how you got into the party. How you escaped. Why you targeted Prometheus.”
“I targeted diamonds.”
He smiled at nothing much and said, “My employers don’t see it that way. Only a fool steals from a party, in the manner in which you did. Anyone reasonable would have targeted the safe, or while the jewels were in transit.”
“I’m a better thief than I am a safe-cracker,” I answered, honestly enough.
A stewardess leant down, interrupting before Gauguin could open his mouth to reply, took our cups, promised a trolley service with light refreshments still to come. Gauguin thanked her courteously; I didn’t have the heart.
When she turned away, I said, “If you knew I was on this flight, why not simply wait until I reached Istanbul?”
“Pressures of time.”
“You’re playing catch-up.”
A shrug: he’s here, isn’t he?
“You brought guns to our meeting in Muscat.”
“You sent a prostitute.”
“Guns,” I repeated. “Sometimes it’s not paranoia.”
He shrugged, a busy man in a busy world.
“You want diamonds, right? I heard you made a deal — your guys help get the diamonds back, the UAE invests in your company?”
A flicker across his face, the tiniest twitch to his smile, and I’ve made a mistake, a right balls-up, and I will have to walk away soon and let him forget. But he’s between me and the aisle, so I added, “I don’t have the diamonds with me now. You want them, we’re going to have to negotiate.”
He smiled at nothing much, turned away, examined the buttons in the plastic ceiling above our heads, the fans blowing in cold air, the illuminated seatbelt light. “No,” he murmured. “No, I think not.”
Silence.
I waited, he waited, and the realisation began to dawn that this man could out-wait the ice age. A childish desire in me; I counted to one hundred, then counted back. Still he waited. I leaned my head back in my chair, ran my mind over my body, feeling each little ache and pain, readjusting my posture so my back was straight, feet on the ground, knees together, shoulders relaxed. Still he waited.
I permitted myself to play out a few scenarios in my mind, and they all ended badly.
I focused until my mind ached on the faint grey pattern woven into the fabric that covered the seat in front of me, and heard myself say without quite knowing from where the words came, “Perfection killed a woman I knew.”
Does he react?
No audible gasp, no nod, no frown. What does he do?
He stares at nothing much, and adjusts his cuffs. I watch him do this, and wonder if he’s even conscious of the act. With the index finger of his right hand he explores the inside edge of his sleeve, feeling the stiff fabric, probing for irregularities. This done, he tugs, once, twice, on the cuff, bringing it into alignment with the bone down the inside of his arm.
Radius, ulna, humerus, scapula, clavicle. Hip bone connected to the thigh bone, thigh bone connected to the knee bone, now hear the word of the Lord…
“Was that why you stole the Chrysalis?”
“No. But it made it more satisfying when I did.”
He nodded, said nothing. Is he also reciting all the bones in the body to himself, is that his mechanism? Femur, patella, tibia, fibula, tarsals, metatarsals, phalanges, how does he not move, how does he not blink?
I can learn a lot from Gauguin, but now isn’t the time.
Then he said: “Tell me about your relationship with Byron14.”
I was less surprised than I thought I’d be. The question had been one of many that circled around my possible list of scenarios, a hovering curiosity on the edge of my mind. “Who’s Byron14?” I replied.
“Byron14 is the individual who you have been in communication with for the last few days via Tor,” he murmured, staring at nothing much, cufflinks rolling between his fingers. “Byron14 is a killer and a terrorist. What have you been discussing?”
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I said.
“Are you sure you can’t hold it?” Like a schoolteacher at an exam.
“Yeah — no.”
As I tried to stand, he grabbed my wrist, face turned upwards, eyes fixed on mine. I felt something brush against my leg, thought it was my seatbelt falling away, but the pressure remained. His eyes flicked down; mine followed.
The knife was ceramic, of course, and only four or five inches long, with a blue plastic handle. Four inches are three more than enough. The angle of his arm, where he held it against my femoral artery, obscured it from all but my inspection, the curve of his fingers along the back of the blade making it look like, perhaps, at worst, he was touching the side of my leg. I sat back down slowly, and the knife followed my journey, before returning back inside Gauguin’s jacket.
My heart, my breath.
I closed my eyes.
“You wouldn’t risk it,” I said at last. “Not on a public flight.”
“I have a very slim chance of being arrested,” he replied. “You’d die for sure.”
“Can’t help you dead.”
“You aren’t helping now.”
“Can’t do anything at thirty-five thousand feet.”
“That’s fine; we’ll land before you know it.”
My heart, too fast, breath too quick. I tried to count and the numbers were tangled, come on, come on!
I found I was trying to remember Parker, forcing myself to picture his face as I had seen it on the photograph. I could see the photograph in my mind’s eye, but his features were flat, unreal, and I bit my lip until I tasted blood. A list of characteristics — mousy hair, pale grey eyes, a mole on the right side of his chin, large ears, small nose — these are just words, they are nothing that has meaning.
“Just relax, Why,” said Gauguin, leaning back in his chair, eyes half closed like a man about to sleep. “Just stay calm. Stay calm.”
My mum, walking barefoot across the desert.
I close my eyes, and feel the sand beneath my feet.
“I’m calm,” I say, and it is true. “There’s really nothing to worry about.”
We fly north-east, towards Istanbul.